Interview Vertikult, Germany. Enrique Saiz Martín

Content:

• vertikult: EVoCH intends to create a European network and observatory for the promotion of the economic value of the European cultural heritage. Why is this important?
• Enrique Saiz Martin:  Even without taking account of the present economic context, it is a fact that the management of cultural heritage (CH) has changed in the last decades, and nowadays it becomes necessary to consider the action on CH as part of the value chain for the economic development. Added to these reasons, there is the urgent need of considering the action on CH not as something that can be discontinued when the economic situation is bad, but as an alternative and stable economic resource. Under this situation, it is urgent to create a European observatory and network in order to make the civil society and the public administrations aware of this approach to the management of CH.
• vertikult: Who will benefit from the EVoCH results?
• Enrique Saiz Martin: The main purpose of this initiative is the economic development of the territories, but of course, creating sustainable structures for managing cultural heritage, like the observatory or the network, will at the end benefit the preservation of cultural assets.
• vertikult: What do you expect as the sustainable impact of EVoCH?
• Enrique Saiz Martin: There is the need to change the approach of public and private activities on cultural heritage. Managing CH should no longer be considered as an activity that can be taken care of just when the welfare state is covered. Nevertheless, it should become an activity that society and public administrations should pay attention to because it is considered as a resource for the sustainable development of the territories. We expect that this network created by the EVoCH project will continue as a permanent network after the Europe funded project is over. We encourage all cultural heritage stake holders (restoring companies, public administrations, foundations, research centers, tourist guides, private owners and so on) to spread the principles of this project within their environments, and we are ready to receive suggestions from all of them.

Enrique Saiz Martin is Director General for Cultural Heritage in the Castilla and Leon Regional Government / Spain. He is a member of the Royal Trustees of the National Museum el Prado, The Council of Spanish Cultural Heritage and the Institute of Urban Sciences at the University of Valladolid. Both as a private practitioner and as an elected politician he has hold for more than a decade, a series of various positions in relation to heritage conservation, urban planning and various master plans for conservation.